Dover Downs ropes Texas Tenors for holiday show

Hot trio The Texas Tenors will heat up Delaware for a holiday concert Thursday

Andre Lamar; andre.lamar@doverpost.com; @302DoAndre

The Texas Tenors of “America’s Got Talent” will bring their holiday show “Deep in the Heart of Texas” to Dover Downs Hotel & Casino on Thursday.

Tickets are limited, so you’ll want to buy yours fast to ensure a seat.

In 2009, the same year the trio formed, they performed on “America’s Got Talent” and became the highest ranking vocal group in the history of the show.

Intent on spreading holiday cheer to the First State, the trio encourages Delawareans to do the same for victims of Hurricane Harvey in Houston, which the group calls home.

They are donating all proceeds from downloads and streams of their single “Rise,” off their namesake album, to the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund established by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner.

“Rise” is available at TheTexasTenors.com and iTunes, Spotify and YouTube.

The song has over 690,000 YouTube streams.

The three-time Emmy-award-winning Tenors are Marcus Collins, JC Fisher and John Hagen.

Collins touched on the storm’s devastation, one of his favorite Christmas memories and being invited to perform at the White House for the National Christmas Tree Lighting, airing Monday, Dec. 4 on the Hallmark Channel.

Was your home damaged by Hurricane Harvey?

JC’s sister actually had a little bit of damage to their offices and home. But I live in Los Angeles now. I was really close to the fire that was happening two months ago. I could see it from my backyard. There were big flames on the mountain, just about two miles from here. It was a little scary. But we have a lot friends and family affected by the hurricane in the Houston area.

How much have you raised from “Rise”?

It’s over $1,500 now. I know it doesn’t seem like a lot, but with singles and streaming … we don’t get to give [hurricane victims] the portion iTunes receives from it. I believe we make about $.70-something cents per download from iTunes. Of course, iTunes takes their cut.

Does that $1,500 include the money you receive from other platforms like Spotify?

It does.

What did it mean to you to be invited to play the White House?

To be a part of that is a big deal for us and we don’t take it lightly. We also want to bring awareness to The Texas Tenors and hopefully to “Rise” so people can download the single.

Donald Trump has been a very controversial president. Did that make you hesitant to perform?

When we received the invitation, we didn’t hesitate at all, because this is for our country and the National Parks Association. It’s to help kick off Christmas and we love Christmas. And we love our country. Whether you support the president or you don’t, he is our president and we’re very honored to perform there at the White House for all of America.

What’s one of your fondest Christmas memories?

JC, in our group, wrote a song about Christmas called “Favorite Time of Year,” and it’s our original song. He wrote a verse in there for me. In the verse I sing, “The snow brings back a childhood memory/My dad come home from work one day with the perfect Christmas tree.”

Before moving to Houston, when I was a small child we lived in Iowa. There were huge mounds of snow. Of course, we didn’t get that in Houston.

I think one of my fondest memories was my dad [in Iowa] dragging in this giant tree. I just remember his face. His cheeks were all red. He was just the most joyous man. My dad passed away in 1999 and it was right before Christmas, on Dec. 6.

For a while, Christmas was pretty tough. Then I met JC and we became the best of friends on the February after my dad passed away. It’s nice to have such great friends to be able to perform with, because they make the holidays bright. And then, of course, we wrote this song.